Cooling Beverages

Keeping cool during the summer months is key to survival in India.  Combined with the humidity, the heat can be absolutely punishing.

Tender coconuts seem to be the preferred cool-down beverage down South, but here in the North it’s lime soda — either sweetened with a syrup concoction or salted. One would think that the salted version would lead to further dehydration negating any interim benefit of a cooling effect, but the locals seem to buy into it.

At my Uncle’s place in Coimbatore, a man would come by every evening and climb up one of several coconut trees in the backyard to fetch one tender coconut for each person.  He then uses a sickle to lop off the top creating a convenient opening from which one imbibes.